Demiansky Demiansky

How does population grow?

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How does population grow?

from Elemental Forums

So we already know that the prestige of your cities attracts people out of the wilderness and bolsters your population.  What I'm wondering though, is what roll standard population growth takes place... you know, via the old fashion way.  Once there are metropolises sprinkled across the landscape, shouldn't we expect that there simply no appreciable amount of people left wandering the wilderness?  And if this is still the main means of gaining citizens, doesn't it kinda make the big bad wilderness not all that big and bad anymore (hey, it can't be that bad if millions of people are out there getting along just fine)?  Not to mention, whatever happened during the Apocalypse must have been pitifully tame.  And if there are so many people out in the countryside, then I would very much expect to see them all over the place when I send my units out adventuring.

What would make the most sense is if population growth in the first 5th or 10th segment of the game time line relies heavily on immigration from the wilderness--- a sort of regathering of civilization.  After this point, it seems reasonable to make population growth contingent on fertility.  Prestige could still play a role, perhaps, in attracting immigrants away from opponents or from smaller cities that don't have the industry to support local population growth.

elemental
17,968 views 29 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

(Commenting on Demiansky's proposal of a percentage of prestige to attract the people, and that food follows the people.)

Thats an interesting notion ... I only wish that the food have to come from somewhere ... as opposed to people being fed on prestige alone, and farming not being required. (or rather, avoiding extreme cases where 100,000 people are being fed on the food of 30,000 people)

I DO agree however, that prestige should be percentage oriented, so that if every city somehow has equal prestige, the population will be equally divided among cities. If however you have a city with lots of accumulated prestige/culture, the vast majority of your population will be centered around the one city, with the rest scattered throughout the other cities.

A city with no prestige might remain stuck at Town status indefinitely, unable to grow from low numbers ... where a small prestige city would slowly grow as say 5% of the nations population will reside there, so once 5% is larger than its current population, it will grow to meet that number (through migration or births).

 

This again, however, addresses the point that Prestige should not be an absolute value of population, but relative proportions of your Nation's population. Therefore I think there should be farming or some-such to raise absolute population ... while you get a certain "rate of immigration" based upon your prestige somehow .

We run into similar problems of absolute growth only being able by immigration, which is why I think absolute growth should be tied to farming/agriculture, and the movement of that growth be directed by Prestige. With this system, perhaps it should be important to keep count of the "wilderness" population to some extent. The wilderness population is able to quickly repopulate itself, but will never grow larger than a certain global value. This is my idea. Although this wilderness effect will be less visible in the grand scheme of things (at least supposedly), as truly gigantic empires will only be enabled by a combination of prestige and farming for absolute AND relative population growth.

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

Thats an interesting notion ... I only wish that the food have to come from somewhere ... as opposed to people being fed on prestige alone, and farming not being required. (or rather, avoiding extreme cases where 100,000 people are being fed on the food of 30,000 people)
End of quote

That is already a non-issue. As it stands your population will not grow beyond the amount of food you can provide them, so there is no way you'll ever have 100,000 people being fed on the food of 30,000 people. His point was merely that i you have 100,000 people in one giant city that only produces enough food or 30,000, then your surplus from other towns and cities would be shipped to it to make up the difference.

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #28 from Elemental Forums Top

we are agreed then

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Demiansky, reply 11

LOL.  An awesome satitical illustration of my concern!
End of Demiansky's quote

Satire? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, SATIRE?!?!? That's how it happens. After all, the "planet quality" number in GalCiv is NOT just an arbitrary number. It is a quantitative description of how much magical energy is being used towards the plants and vegetation of the planet. The planets still have large swaths of land in which the energy is free, and this is where the population in GalCiv comes from. The people in the GalCiv universe are merely much more happy to join the advanced civilization than the people of Elemental who have to choose between a hard, immortal life in the wilds or a mortal life in a Medieval town, complete with all the nasties associated.

Ok, so that's not the only reason... There are also the "fertility clinics" in GalCiv outside of the land fit for civilized use which make use of the magical energies. But I won't go off on that disturbing tangent other than to say "OH MY GOD, HOW DID THEY ALL FIT IN THERE???"

Hence GalCiv population is counted in billions while in elemental every peasant counts.

Now, on to the topic of food shortages.

I agree that food shortages should cause a decrease in population. After all, if there is not enough food to go around, people will... uh... begin to leave.